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Episode 213 - Eat Ball Deluxe

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 38m·analyzed·Feb 18, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Eclectic Gamers EP213: Gaming updates, AP credibility concerns, The Princess Bride P3 reveal, Jaws shark mod, Haggis delays.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers Podcast Episode 213 covers gaming changes (Dennis's Battletech withdrawal, Tony's completion of Golem and I Am Fish), three listener emails about American Pinball credibility issues and streaming decisions, a The Princess Bride P3 pinball announcement, a fan-made shark-eating-ball mod for JAWS (Pro) ($500), Jaws LE supply chain delays, and Haggis Pinball announcement of further production delays due to supply chain optimization.

Key Claims

  • American Pinball failed to immediately dispute rumors of being up for sale, damaging investor confidence

    high confidence · Email from Doug: rumor was not immediately disputed by David or AP, destroying confidence in the manufacturer

  • American Pinball used Hot Wheels for streaming due to GTF reliability concerns from location operators

    medium confidence · Email from Scott citing Dave's Pinball Profile explanation about Hot Wheels being backwards compatible with new board; Scott believes GTF was avoided due to operator complaints about reliability

  • Multimorphic is developing Princess Bride as a first-party P3 game, not third-party

    medium confidence · Hosts note that CSI researchers identified triple buttons on teaser poster confirming P3, discussion shifted to first-party development aligning with Multimorphic's prior licensing success (Weird Al)

  • A $500 shark-eating-ball mod for Jaws Pro with vertical kick system and ramp feed is available with significant pre-orders

    high confidence · Hosts describe intricate mod replacing boat toy with shark sculpt, notes pre-order list exists, discusses gameplay impact concerns

  • Stern encountered LE supply chain delays on Jaws; building Premiums instead while LE component (possibly decals) is unavailable

    medium confidence · Dennis notes LE supply chain snag, unclear which component, now building Premiums instead; someone reported LEs still available from distributors

  • Haggis Pinball is further slowing production to pivot manufacturing methodology away from just-in-time supply chain dependency

    high confidence · Official Haggis announcement read in full; CEO states further delays coming to recapitalize and refocus procurement strategies

  • Pulp Fiction pinball is finally in limited production based on production line photos

    medium confidence · Dennis reports seeing production line photos and notes of limited availability

Notable Quotes

  • “There is no way this was an attempt to look for outside investors... Since the rumor that this company was up for sale and not immediately disputed by David and or anyone at AP, that, at least for me, has destroyed any confidence I had in this manufacturer going forward.”

    Doug (email) @ ~06:00 — Core credibility argument against American Pinball; demonstrates reputational damage from non-response to acquisition rumors

  • “Why did they use Hot Wheels to stream when they could have used a game that they are currently selling? Great idea, but it's AP, so why do anything in a logical, rational way?”

    Scott (email) @ ~08:00 — Criticism of American Pinball's strategic decision-making and pattern of poor choices

  • “I felt like Tony missed a big opportunity by not naming his game Eat Ball with the potential to follow up of Eat Ball Deluxe.”

    Joe (email) @ ~18:00 — Humorous listener feedback about Tony's homebrew game naming; became episode title

  • “The shark, it's a shark sculpt, no lower jaw. It's got some little rubber bumpers on the side of it. It does shake when it eats the ball. So think kind of left shark, little Katy Perry action going on.”

    Dennis @ ~38:00 — Vivid description of the Jaws shark-eating-ball mod mechanics and design

  • “I think it's mechanically very clever. I would never go for a mod like this because it just changes gameplay way too much.”

    Dennis @ ~43:00 — Balanced assessment of mod design while expressing philosophical opposition to gameplay-altering modifications

  • “Manufacturing pinball machines is hard. It is a multi-disciplined, multi-faceted endeavor incorporating a wide and varied number of components and skills.”

    Haggis CEO (via announcement) @ ~55:00 — Opening of official statement acknowledging manufacturing complexity as preface to further delays

  • “Any interruptions to the supply chain, of which we have faced many, have a flow-on effect that decreases our throughput and introduces ongoing delays and backlogs.”

Entities

American PinballcompanyMultimorphiccompanyStern PinballcompanyHaggis PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyDennispersonTonypersonDougperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball demonstrating pattern of poor strategic decisions (streaming choice, GT reliability issues, messaging tone)

    high · Scott's email citing 'delusional Dave' and questioning why AP 'choose to die on this hill' regarding non-themed games; multiple listeners noting illogical business choices

  • ?

    business_signal: Haggis Pinball acknowledging structural manufacturing challenges after 2.5 years of delays; attempting systematic remedy through supply chain model restructuring

    high · CEO statement on decision to 'further slow down production activities, recapitalize, and refocus our procurement strategies' to improve future throughput and quality

  • ?

    community_signal: American Pinball's failure to immediately dispute acquisition rumors has severely damaged community confidence and investor trust

    high · Doug's email: 'destroyed any confidence I had in this manufacturer going forward' and decision to never buy AP games; Scott concurs with pattern of poor decisions

  • ?

    community_signal: Fan-made Jaws mod demonstrates significant pre-order demand and ongoing community focus on game modifications and customization

    medium · Hosts note 'significant pre-order list' for $500 shark mod; extensive community discussion on Flippin' Out livestream

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Community consensus on shark-eating-ball as low-effort, predictable, unoriginal design choice despite mod's mechanical cleverness

    medium · Dennis: 'too common, too predictable, too safe' and 'it is so low effort, non-creative to insist that this game had to eat the ball'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.296

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, February 18th. Today's episode number is 213. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. We're back. We actually have, this time, news. Like news news. Like stuff. Yeah, quite a mix of things. But I know you've had major gaming changes since the last episode. I'll be honest. I'm having withdrawal symptoms here. I saw you shaking when you came in. Yeah, it's pretty rough. I deleted Battletech when I got done because that way I could guarantee that I wouldn't just fire it up and start playing again. And immediately kind of wanted to reinstall it, but I didn't. I actually posted the video to Instagram and the Facebook of me deleting it. And then I've just been playing other games that I have had on Steam for a while, some that I've played before, some that I've only played a little bit of, and I'm just kind of bouncing around between a bunch of different games like SnowRunner and Rule the Waves and Nova Drift and LazHack and some others, just kind of seeing what I'm in the mood for to play and trying not to let the withdrawal symptoms hit me bad enough that I just reinstall Battletech. I literally will occasionally find myself on Sarna, which is the Battletech wiki, which is quite frankly the best fan wiki there is. Just reading up on stuff for ideas for the next time I play. I have a problem with this. I have a problem. Well, I mean, you could always start up a Battletech podcast, I suppose, and just lean into it. There's so many very good ones that I know I could never be up to their level of quality. That's why we chose pinball, because they're so weak. Yeah.
2:10
Sorry, other podcasters. Just deal with it. There's more longevity at this point. It probably doesn't help that one of our newer guys is like me. He's an old school miniatures gamer, including playing Battletech since the 90s, in addition to a lot of other games that we'll talk about it too, like a break and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I've not been playing nearly as much of a mix of items. You never really do. You are a very focused gamer. Yeah, I don't like to have to think about different control sets and such, and I find it easier just to sort of tear through a game usually and then decide if it's worth replaying or if I want to do anything else with it or if it's time to set it aside and move on. So I did finish Golem. I was further off, as I noted on the last episode, than I had hoped to be. I had hoped to finish it on the last episode. But it is finished, and there is a link in the show notes to the video review, but I'll provide a review summary here when we're in the video game section so people don't have to go and watch that. That video is about 18 minutes long, so I don't know if I'll talk that long about it here. So anyway, that's – On the video, do you show on the doll where Golem touched you?

Haggis CEO (via announcement) @ ~56:30 — Explanation of cascading effects of supply chain disruption on just-in-time manufacturing model

Scott
person
Joeperson
Davidperson
Joelperson
Keith Elwinperson
Princess Bridegame
Jawsgame
Fathom Revisitedgame
Centaur Revisitedgame
Pulp Fictiongame
Elton Johngame
Golemgame
I Am Fishgame
Battletechgame
Hot Wheelsgame
GTFgame
  • ?

    licensing_signal: Princess Bride licensing secured by Multimorphic for P3 platform; represents major first-party IP acquisition alongside prior Weird Al licensing

    medium · Hosts discuss Multimorphic's success securing 'large license before Weird Al' and Princess Bride as alignment with first-party development strategy

  • ?

    announcement: Princess Bride P3 pinball reveal scheduled February 19, 2024; confirmed first-party Multimorphic development based on teaser analysis

    high · Hosts note CSI researchers identified triple buttons confirming P3; discussion shifted to first-party development as more plausible than third-party license securing

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern Jaws LE experiencing supply chain delays; component scarcity (likely decals) forcing production schedule shuffle to Premiums

    medium · Dennis: 'Stern has, unfortunately for LE buyers, hit a supply chain snag. Some element of the LE is not currently accessible. They had planned to be building LEs at this point'

  • ?

    product_concern: Pinball journalist practice of soft interviews and lack of follow-up questioning enabled by hobbyist podcast culture and small community dynamics

    medium · Dennis defends softball interview approach, noting 'it's really hard when you're interviewing someone in a hobbyist podcast medium to ask them questions that they might just hang up on you over' and relationship dynamics prevent aggressive follow-up

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pulp Fiction pinball finally in limited production after extended delays, indicating Stern manufacturing prioritization shifting

    medium · Dennis: 'saw some more like some production line photos, more evidence of Pulp Fiction's being built. So looks like that's finally happening' and 'limited availability' reports

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Haggis Pinball pivoting away from just-in-time manufacturing due to repeated supply chain failures; further production slowdown and delays imminent

    high · Official Haggis announcement: 'we have made a decision to adjust our manufacturing methodology to move away from such a tight dependency on the supply chain' requiring further slowing, recapitalization, and refocus

  • ?

    technology_signal: Jaws shark mod raises gameplay balance and code update compatibility concerns; changes shot geometry and risk/reward in ways that may conflict with future patches

    medium · Dennis discusses fear that mod makes right ramp credits 'easier,' notes modder's plan to address routing but existing design changes geometry; raises code update incompatibility question

    • 3:32
    I show a lot of things that are problematic with the game. And I actually keep most of the game audio out of it until I complain about the audio. And then there's an extended segment where I kind of just show repeatedly where it just tried to grind me to dust. And so that part, yes, I suppose is a little bit of a dull moment. Since then, I actually have been playing I Am Fish, which I had – that's made by the team that did I Am Bread. You may have heard of that. It's always on sale on Steam, it seems. A platforming game. I Am Fish is a platforming game where you are a fish, and you're trying to get to your other fish friends in the ocean. How does a fish platform? By rolling like in a fishbowl and stuff. Okay. So it depends on the type of fish. So I had started this quite a long time ago, actually, and I got to the final chapter as the goldfish, and it was really, really hard because I was having to roll across construction girders and stuff in a fishbowl. And, you know, if you roll wrong, think like Marble Madness style rolling. So anyway, it was just it was rough. So I resume that, though, after finishing Golem and I finished my goldfish play. I finished my puffer fish play. I think I'm on the last or the second to last. So far, they've been three chapters per fish. So I think I'm on the last chapter for the piranha fish. They all have different abilities because they're different types of fish and different. Anyway, it's it's weird. It's silly. So where on the fish bowl have you been touched by your fish?
    5:11
    Oh, my gosh. Some of it is so laughably weird. I'm already having difficulty reconciling. We're all going to the ocean where the goldfish is.
    5:24
    He's in the ocean. No. I don't understand why he's not. He's not dead. I'm going around as a puffer fish in the rivers to get to the ocean. But I'm not dead. But, yes, the answer should be. The answer to most of this is dead.
    5:44
    So you've transitioned from I am golem to I am fish. Yes. How do you plan on abusing yourself next? Do you have a plan? Are you going to get Game Pass to get the free Diablo 4 when it hits Game Pass? You know, now that the rumors that Microsoft was getting out of video games were greatly exaggerated over the last couple of weeks has been interesting. It has. I think actually my next game is some Double Dragon thing I have sitting there to do. I don't know. So then you can tell us where the Double Dragons touched you. Don't forget RoboCop. That wasn't that long ago, and I was okay with that.
    6:25
    I'm also okay with us moving on to the pinball segment. Actually, we have had several emails, three emails that came in to a collective gamers podcast at gmail.com. Thank you very much. That is our preferred method for submissions coming in. If for no other reason, then it's very easy for us to drop them into our internal show notes to discuss. So I would go ahead and read those here, even though they're not all necessarily purely pinball focused. Let's just tackle them here. That's what we've typically been doing. So the first one I want to do is from Doug. Thank you, Doug, for writing into us. He actually wrote to us about our American Pinball discussion that we had on the last episode. And Doug writes, hi, guys. Great show on the AP topic. I have to disagree unless American Pinball's parent company is completely hands off and lets David and his crew do anything they want, no matter how unprofessional it is. There is no way this was an attempt to look for outside investors. That is simply not the way to go about it. Since the rumor that this company was up for sale and not immediately disputed by David and or anyone at AP, that, at least for me, has destroyed any confidence I had in this manufacturer going forward. I don't care, given the way that they let that rumor float and not immediately respond or dispute it, I will not buy an AP game ever. even if they make an Empire Strikes Back the undisputed best Star Wars film there is and the game has 100% of the movie assets and they made in a mode where Yoda grabs the ball and dances and sings Seagulls stop it now and then feeds it to an AT-AT walker who then spits it out into a Sarlacc that slowly digests the ball over a thousand years oh wait that was Jedi anyway I won't buy it as I've lost all confidence the company will be around in a year to support their product or even ship it after I make payment no way too risky i think that's a safe assumption i i don't see any real horrible uh uh incorrectness in that no uh and that's for those that didn't hear the last episode why why go back and listen to it but we had a conversation because there was rumors floating around that american pinball had been looking for a buyer which has since been disputed by american pinball as doug touched on in his email the only element i really wanted to bring up about this is why has no one taken like the stern star wars and made a seagull stop it now mod i mean they don't believe in themselves enough i yeah i guess not because that would be chose do not they did not choose do um that's actually not my favorite star wars song bushes of love is my favorite it i want that one in there too the bushes of love uh but that's more new hope so i understood why he had to go with the seagulls uh all right next email was actually from scott i think this is the one that's really all over the place on the discussion so scott emailed us thank you scott and he wrote the following because it says aloha so i'm gonna of course use a southern accent aloha gentlemen i listened to the most recent episode and wanted to share a few thoughts from the topics you covered. Perhaps Patreon members can get more stories of how Tony has decimated the hopes and dreams of our youth. I did enjoy the Flask story. American Pinball. Why did they use Hot Wheels to stream when they could have used a game that they are currently selling? Great idea, but it's AP, so why do anything in a logical, irrational way?
    9:55
    Dave insinuated on Pinball Profile they used Hot Wheels because it's an older game using the new board and thus illustrating and it's backwards compatible, yada yada. I believe they didn't use GTF due to reliability. The folks who operate locations have complained about these machines, and being live would be a danger.
    10:14
    He also, as you referenced, continued on with the nonsense about non-themed games citing popular machines in the top ten. Correct. Forty years ago, before they cost 10K or went into homes, themes had less relevance. I don't know why they choose to die on this hill, but it's silly. And while not up for sale, according to delusional Dave, Jeff Teolas interviewed the boys from Deep Root just before they went under. So time will tell.
    10:41
    Jeff is an asset to the hobby, but my goodness, the softball questions and handholding is too much. I had to tune into the Mr. Fix episode and his next to Mike from Homepin and must listens. Appreciate the content, boys. Thank you, Scott. Well, thank you, Scott. I have not listened to the episode regarding the question. But in defense to Jeff in regards to Scott, which I almost thought, do I want to read that part aloud? I figured I might as well because this does come up and I've seen it come up. And I've even said it about, say, the episode where Slam Tilt had on the American Pinball crew. This was months and months ago. And it was very much a softball interview. Here's the thing you all, I think, need to remember. And you can judge all of us for it. It's fine because we're just as guilty of it. And it's really hard when you're interviewing someone in a hobbyist podcast medium to ask them questions that they might just hang up on you over.
    11:41
    We're not – this isn't hard-hitting journalism. We're not really equipped to – it's like there's no – there's like no – the best I've ever been able to do back when we did a lot of interviews, and acutely like we had the first interview with Robert Mueller at Deep Root is not letting them get a screening copy to go over and decide what to keep in or whatnot. But obviously they're hearing the questions. They can refuse to answer you. I was trying to ask relevant questions, but including things that might be that might be sensitive. But if they kind of give like the boilerplate PR political answer, there's no one really follows up. And that's and that's really why I think it is. Not to mention a lot of times we know these people as individuals and that makes it extra hard because the hobby is so small. That's been why for us, we've generally operated more at arm's reach, but there are people who work in the industry who either because they listen to the show or whatever, they end up becoming friends or at least nice acquaintances. And yeah, you don't like to rake them over the coals. So in that regard, I'm not surprised that it would be a softball interview. They almost all are softball interviews with almost anyone. It's always easier to talk smack when you're not looking across the microphone at someone. So any thoughts on this, though? It sort of touched on some of the AP things again, but this was more on the streaming side. Yeah. No, I don't have any. Which I also don't watch. Other than to say is that I'm sure I've only decimated the hopes and dreams of some of you. Oh, yeah. There was a literal head in hand moment. Well, that's why I started laughing.
    13:24
    There's maybe been a few, but I'm typically traditionally a good guy. I'm just a good guy. Except when it comes to a snowplow. Is the snowplow the one ring? Does it corrupt Tony?
    13:43
    One thing. Does one thing make you evil? Does one thing make you a bad person? I must admit my heart has greatly desired this.
    13:58
    Instead of a road crew, you'll have a snowplower. Not dark, but as beautiful as the freshly driven snow. As treacherous as the slush. Stronger than the very foundations of the icicles.
    14:12
    All will shovel and despair. And now if you ask Dennis at TPF, he'll give you three of his hairs. You should be asking for yours because, oh, I guess you failed the test. I failed the test. And didn't go off into the West. Instead, you were allowed to corrupt you.
    14:31
    I'm more Nazgul now than man. He's a plow wraith. Oh, I think this is only funny to us, but it's staying in. All right. Last email. Hey, this is another one that references you, John. This is from Joe. And he wrote in actually specifically about Ball Eater.
    14:58
    Hello. I don't know what voice to use for Joe. So we're just getting a cheery one. Hello. I felt like Tony missed a big opportunity by not naming his game Eat Ball with the potential to follow up of Eat Ball Deluxe.
    15:11
    I'm not finishing. That's good. I'm not finishing the rest of the email. Thank you, Joe. But that's it. I appreciate that, Joe. You know. I like it.
    15:22
    I like it. Eat Bob Deluxe. Yeah, I did it. Oh, it's so good. Joe, why do you do this to me? It would be such a good follow-up.
    15:38
    Oh, it would be so good. Okay. Yeah. Well, anyway, those were the emails. So we're all caught up. Thank you for emailing everyone. We do appreciate it. Speaking of getting caught up, JJP, Elton John, they're still building those. And in fact, they are currently in the process of building the CE or collector's edition. For those that don't know, that's the fifteen thousand dollar edition. Did you order that one, Tony? I didn't. I ordered the tiny dancer edition. It's the 15 cent version. it probably will someone will probably try and make a version that's in virtual pinball or something that would even cost less than that because you just download it for free but and somebody really would need to then if it was virtual you could reskin it easily so that when when you chose tiny dancer it changed all the graphics to tony danza and it became hold me closer to him you just won't let that friends episode go well speaking of not letting things go we can't let go of the time-honored tradition tony of us putting on an episode and then the day later a new game drops so get ready for princess bride that's how that that that is listen we started recording episodes eight years ago now on a bi-weekly basis. We've always been consistent. And we just picked the wrong darn week that we started eight years ago. Yes. If we'd waited one week or sent it one week earlier, this would be, everything would be okay.
    17:20
    So I blame old us. well those were young us i blame ancestral us young us because they're just this was before you were corrupted by the plow that's how long ago that was actually well it's before that incident that was not before i first started plowing i've been plowing since the 90s but the incident where the plow corrupted you to making the wrong decision. Now I just have this image of me driving the plow truck, except for it's black with the giant wings. I mean, I just imagine your supervisor saw you going by early, like the first or second year you were plowing, and he's like, you know,
    18:06
    Tony has proved surprisingly resilient to its evil. Over time, the closer you plow to Mordor, the harder it is to carry that burden.
    18:18
    See, now I need to get an external speaker for my truck, for my plow truck, so that while I'm plowing and driving, it just does the scree. You want the Nazgul scree? The Nazgul scree as I drive past people. I think you should just have the language of Bordor, just having the Sauron speak, well, that you'd hear when the ring was on, and saying, I see you and stuff. In fact, can you get – here in the city where these plows are, like kids go and they decorate the plow blades. It's like a big contest thing that they do, right? I think that's – They do. My plow truck is not part of that because they do that for the big fancy trucks. No, that's – they could do it for you. Then that's why you could have yours custom done and just have it be the lidless eye. Oh, just the lidless eye right in the middle of the plow? Yes, because then it won't upset the kids because they won't have to – won't you know they're doing the big plows and your little lidless eye and then just have like all of the writing in in the language and then people will be like why isn't why isn't your one with the eye of sorrow and the big plow you can say well because i cannot fully take physical form yeah but my spirit has endured oh this episode's gonna suck so bad way too many lord to the ring service. Does that mean that when I plow, I have to dress up like I'm the voice of Sauron and get my teeth covered?
    19:47
    That character is in Gollum. I didn't mention that in the video review. I will talk about it later because I get some thoughts. The mouth of Sauron. The name of that character. All right. So anyway, Princess Bride. So they have indicated that the reveal is going to be tomorrow, February 19th, 2024.
    20:07
    People have taken the little poster, teasing it, and using various zoom-in enhanced techniques with the side of the cab profile have noticed the triple buttons. So it's seen as now essentially confirmed by our CSI researchers that this is a P3 game. However, the discussion has shifted to this not being a third-party P3 game, but actually being one of Multimorphic's first party. Interesting. Which would align more with a lot of people going and expressing surprise that a third-party person would develop a module and have secured this license. Right. Whereas, obviously, Multimorphic has secured a large license before Weird Al.
    20:48
    So then the big questions become all the interesting stuff that we'll find out when this announcement happens. Yes. So we won't speculate any further, but we will just have to wait and see. and then we'll be some of the last to cover it because it's going to be two weeks. It's going to be two weeks before it comes out. Welcome to Eclectic Gamers Podcast. All right. Here's another thing that came out just a few days ago, so we do get to talk about it. Why shark don't eat ball? Well, someone, of course, this in no way surprises me. What surprises me is actually how intricate it is. Someone made a mod for Jaws Pro where shark eat ball. So I've shown Tony a little image of it so he can get a look at it. There is a video clip that kind of shows a little bit of it, but obviously that's no good for anyone here on the audio podcast. I'm going to briefly describe it. The way it functions. The shark eats the ball. Yes. There you go. The shark, it's a shark sculpt, no lower jaw. It's got some little rubber bumpers on the side of it. It does shake when it eats the ball. So think kind of left shark, little Katy Perry action going on. He's choking on it a little.
    21:52
    So it replaces the boat. the ball of the play field and that's where you're not supposed to extended peep confer obviously can't see it uh tony actually and then pantomimes for me to write down the time stamp because he can't help but say it he can't help it he can't he couldn't hold it couldn't do it you can ask him at tpf what he said and i'm sure he'll be more than happy to share but i couldn't let you hear the entire sentence that's how bad it was and the irony is there was not a single profanity in it it's so inappropriate that i can't play it and he knew it so that's why he let me know to protect you and your children from what he finds amusing oh my god this episode is so bad we should really restart i think we should just start it over i disagree i think this might be our best episode like like like like like five episodes okay so the shark after it eats the ball it the they took the boat out uh where the which is a captive ball toy normally so apparently underneath underneath that boat it's the same place as the premium le so there's a subway under there so they've like or at least there's a hole for a subway so anyway the mod isn't just the sculpt the mod has a whole uh vertical up kick system that kicks it over it feeds the right ramp so the ball will return to your flipper and it's 500 is the price so this is somewhat polarizing of a mod and the yeah that's fine i i we gotta get through this i'm just gonna keep going if you guys i'm not gonna cut the laughing in the background and i'm not gonna wait for it to stop because anytime I say the word ball or balls, it comes back up, and there's just no point in waiting. I need a bond for the bond where the shark hasn't kept mascot.
    24:12
    That one's staying in because I can't be right now. I'm right out of room on this Facebook. So anyway, it's $500. What do you think?
    24:23
    All right, you can't talk right now. So what I think is – actually, I was invited on to the Flippin' Out. live stream chat a few days ago and Joel who hosts that brought up the mod However Joel spoke for like 15 minutes about it so I actually didn say a single thing about the mod because I thought we talked about it And by we I mean him Way too long for me to bother weighing in on it Overall, you know, I'm not surprised that this came out.
    24:48
    My understanding is there's a significant pre-order list. There's a lot of concerns because it changes gameplay.
    24:55
    I guess the modder has indicated the plan to make it So it doesn't trigger the right ramp credits in the way that another shot is supposed to. Because the way the game works on the Pro, I believe if you shoot over to the left ramp and it doesn't have enough momentum to complete that, it also allows itself to fall onto the right ramp. And that's supposed to count a different way. And so this looks like, as it currently is designed, it would feed that like you weren't making that shot. And basically the fear is that it's going to make certain credits a lot easier. credits of the right ramp my understanding is the plan is that that won't happen however what it definitely does do is it takes a somewhat risky shot because you're shooting normally into a captive ball and there's no control at that point into a back to your right flipper shot and it's a pretty big shot like it's pretty open to go and get to the shark so though obviously it's not the full width of the shot so anyway uh my overall thought is it's i think it's mechanically very clever. I would never go for a mod like this because it just changes gameplay way too much. But we've seen other mods like that before. We've seen mods that extend provide a center post on Ghostbusters. Most of you all listening are too young in the hobby to have remembered that, but it was a very popular mod that made the game demonstrably easier.
    26:15
    And this, I think this is the mod person who changed the Rick and Morty ramp shot in some way. So they've clearly don't have any qualms about changing up the geometry. I think some people are a little annoyed because I think they take offense to changing a Keith Elwin design in particular. But I don't see any reason to take any more or less offense to the notion than modding anyone else's game. I mean, if that's what you love, I revert back to my jokes that I still stand by that it is so low effort, non-creative to insist that this game had to eat the ball. I guess if I have any disappointment, it's that people got that hung up on that one way. And I get it. Everyone has a fun little bar discussion of, oh, if we made this game, oh, it's got to have. It's got to have. And people decided the shark got to eat ball.
    27:10
    And I'm like, it's too common, too predictable, too safe. Okay, I'm better. Up to now, I regretted not being available on Wednesday for that live stream. I didn't get the message because I was out. Oh, he did message you. He did. Okay, I did not because I told him you were probably asleep. Yeah, I didn't get the message until – I didn't check my messages until like Friday. So I missed it by like two days. But now I really – so I already regretted missing it because I thought it would have been fun. And now maybe it wasn't such a bad thing because I probably would have gotten myself in trouble. Well, I don't think they beep on that stream. So once you're past the first few seconds, I think at this point YouTube changed its rules. You can be naughty.
    28:03
    You can be nasty. Then I might have finally had my true self shown to the world. Yeah, that's true. But I will say that I feel like anything that has this large of a change to the gameplay is a little too far on the modding, while at the same time being too little. Because if you're going to make a change to the gameplay, you might as well make a bunch of major changes instead of just one little change. That's going to, in all honesty, probably cause issues as code updates come out.
    28:39
    Yeah, that's a good point. I haven't even thought about the code situation. So, but if you absolutely have to have your balls eaten. It's your money, your game. Go for it. Speaking of Jaws, my understanding is Stern has, unfortunately for LE buyers, hit a supply chain snag. Some element of the LE is not currently accessible. They had planned to be building LEs at this point. So my understanding is now they're building premiums. So it's something very LE. Interesting. Decal or something. So, I mean, I think most people. I wonder if there was a run error and they have to have the decals rerun or something. I don't know. I don't recall what they announced. I mean, it's just obviously a shuffling of the schedule. So to me, not having an order on an LE, I don't care. But obviously, LE people do because they were really looking forward to getting in their game. I heard from someone. I have not confirmed this, that you can still buy LEs from distributors. So, well, now you cannot kick yourself because you wouldn't have had it yet.
    29:45
    Also saw some more like some production line photos, more evidence of Pulp Fiction's being built. So looks like that's finally happening. I have received some notes that they're at least in limited availability. Okay. Good to know. Well, speaking of limited availability, let's go ahead and close out on the last pinball topic, which is an update from Haggis. Haggis out of Australia, makers of Kelts, makers of Fathom Revisited, and thought to soon to be makers of Centaur Revisited. They are based in Australia, and there is a link in the show notes to the Nap Arcade article that goes over this. I don't normally like to read entire announcements, but I will in this instance because I want us to go ahead and have a discussion of it. And I think people need to be able to hear it to have the context and we can't rely on folks actually going and reading it. So here's the announcement from Haggis. I hope this message finds you well. I'm reaching out to share some important updates about Haggis Pinball and the status of your game order. As I'm sure you've heard once or twice before, manufacturing pinball machines is hard. It is a multi-disciplined, multi-faceted endeavor incorporating a wide and varied number of components and skills. Starting this endeavor from my garage in Australia at the onset of the global pandemic has proved to be extremely difficult. While we've been incredibly proud of the quality of games we have produced and the innovation and creation of the industry that did not exist in this country, our thorough put and ability to manufacture games in a timely manner has been our shortcoming. Over the last two and a half years, we have produced three different titles and developed an immense capability, setting us up for ongoing future success. Our manufacturing methodology is based on just-in-time and learned principles, which I still believe is the optimum strategy. However, this model has a very tight coupling and dependency on supply chain continuity and efficiencies. Any interruptions to the supply chain, of which we have faced many, have a flow-on effect that decreases our throughput and introduces ongoing delays and backlogs. As we wind down the end of Fathom Revisited production and swing into Centaur Revisited, we have made a decision to adjust our manufacturing methodology to move away from such a tight dependency on the supply chain to support our forecasted throughput better. To support this change, we will need to further slow down production activities, recapitalize, and refocus our procurement strategies and partner offerings. In the short term, what this will mean for those of you currently waiting on a game from us is there will be further delays. Of this, I am incredibly sorry. Your patience and support in the broader community's patience and support has been tremendous and incredibly important to me and Haggis Pinball as a whole. We would not be able to do what we do without it, so it makes it even harder for me to deliver this news of further delays. However, I believe that for the ongoing continued success of the company, it is something we need to address now rather than repeat the experiences we have had over the production lifecycle of Fathom Revisited. Just to clarify, we are still manufacturing, boxing, and shipping games. That has not changed. So yes, once again, I will ask you for your patience and support while we pivot and refocus to improve our ability to build the highest quality games in the world. Thank you for being a part of our journey. We value your trust and support immensely. Okay. Sorry that I read all of that. However, there were so many pieces to it. Without the context, I just really worried that people wouldn't be able to follow along. So very, very lengthy.
    33:07
    It says a lot more than I thought a press release would, which I think is good. I appreciate that. But there's also a little bit, maybe a lot of it, a corporate speak style words. And I tried to emphasize it with my voice. The part that concerns me the most in all of this was this stressing of the need to recapitalize. Right. That is all of the red flags because that means their system, and I'm not obviously a professional, but from my mind, that means that their supplying being the on-demand is at a point where they don't have the money to continue.
    34:00
    getting parts on demand and building. They have to recap. If they have to recapitalize, it means they need to come up with fundings to finish what they are already contracted for.
    34:14
    And so, you know, I'm not used. I'm not really used to the phrase recapitalize. And so according to Investopedia, here is what the word means. What is the meaning of recapitalization? And it says, and if you don't like the Oxford definition, the dentist definition after reading all those is we're out of money. Yeah.
    35:04
    I doubt it. I doubt we're going to be seeing an IP for Haggis pinball. This is in my mind, angel investor time. So you think maybe that's what they're looking for is trying to get some, a bailout. If not that they are, Or they could be looking to reduce their overhead to free up some more liquid liquidity.
    35:30
    And that's an interesting one. So, well, let me first go ahead and touch on the first one. So, like buyout, not unheard of in pinball. Stern's investors came in in 2008, saved the company. Jersey Jack Pinball has billionaire backing because JJP was struggling in the process of doing Hobbit and got saved basically through that mechanism, or that's how the public interprets it, the investors in both cases saved these companies.
    35:56
    So going on the second one, like the reducing overhead idea, I would agree. But because there's so much detail in his message to the customers, Damien points out that their manufacturing approach has all been doing this just-in-time lean principle. so it doesn't they're not modeled on a traditional build where you you stockpile like all the supplies and then you build it's all all this stuff supposed to arrive simultaneously i'm assuming for cash flow reasons right and then they put the game together and so they they've noted that's caused problems because what's the biggest flaw when you're we're doing just in time if something isn't in time you get a jaws le scenario where oh we can't build we're missing the one thing we need and you can't ship out a 95 complete pinball we've seen people try and by people we mean chicago gaming company and try we mean cactus canyons when there was talk about i think sending people the games and then sending them the toppers later yeah which on paper you probably think well that could work and then in practice it's like yeah except so many of these people who buy new inbox games don't keep them very long and what are they going to do with the topper once it comes are they going to remember or bother or be legally obligated to pass it on to the second buyer you see where it starts to be a a thing so so given that they they've noted that that's where a lot of the delays have been from is is just in time because personally i don't think just in time is a very good model i think it's a model that you might choose to do if your cash flow is desperately tight but i don't think it's an ideal model personally but i'm not a manufacturer and i don't have i think it works better if you are a vertically integrated company yeah that would make sense but then you would basically have almost full control of the supply chain outside of maybe some of the transport correct so like rolex for example is a vertically integrated company so like it that they smelt their own gold for their watches right like it's They have full control over every stage of it. But, I mean, does it really make much of a difference for them at that point, whether they stockpile all the gold cases for a year or they build them to order? They'd be able to control and know if there was an issue coming up a lot better. So I agree on that. But I'm not sure they – I don't know of any vertically integrated companies. Once you're that powerful to have so much control over your whole chain, I don't even know what model they would use. They probably have their own model. Like we're awesome and own everything model. Because I mean, basically, I mean, I don't know. I don't I never really thought about that. OK, so but Haggis obviously is not vertically integrated. Correct. And then the question comes into being like talking about freeing overhead, reducing overhead.
    38:50
    He talks about I mean, they started in a garage, obviously, with their kind of production. They've probably moved into a larger facility to work with. And then you start wondering, well, what kind of equipment do they have in there? I mean, they might have equipment that is not necessary. It's helpful, it's useful, it's expensive, but it's not necessary to get the job done. And selling said equipment can create capital. It can free money. Reducing from a larger facility to a smaller facility can do the same. These are all things that we don't know enough about them to know. Right. They're just right. These are these are we're merely speculating. So reminders, folks, this is speculations. We're not speculators speculating. Well, that's what we do on podcast. So here's here's how here's how this is my speculation without having spoken to anyone there. This is what I think this means. given the notation of moving away changing from the just-in-time approach i think they're going to a more they want to go to a more traditional approach so that means bulk orders of materials and they need money to be able to buy all of it up front and that's the recapitalize is okay how do we move from this we can't do the whole we ship a few games we get the money from those games now we can buy more parts, ship some more. So you can spooky kind of did it. Like they kind of walked the road in the old days. You might remember with, with TNA, um, they did them in batches of, of 50 for a reason. So they do like their pinball parts order from pinball life for the stuff they didn't do in house would come in, in a batch of 50. Right. And they acknowledged it would be cheaper for them in the long run. If they could order like 500 at a time, that's what like what Stern will do. Like if they're, if they're ordering coil stops, the infamous coil stops like if the more you can order the better price per unit you can get but spooky didn't have the size uh they didn't know how many units they were going to be selling that added a complication for tna and so given that they just couldn't do the cash outlay because they took deposits but that wasn't enough to buy everything to build all the units for most of their game runs so that's why they did that for such a long period of time and that's where I think this has been like we're going to get this stuff for like I'm just making up stuff we're going to get this stuff to make like five fathoms and then they something happens and they can't bring in any more money until a fathom gets shipped because they didn't get the game prepaid so they have to sell a game to make more money now the catch here and I think where people are going to get concerned is all the deposit money that they've received for Centaur I don't imagine that's just sitting in escrow waiting for centaur builds that raises concerns that they were burning through the deposit money on centaur to try and get through building these fathoms and then the full price of the fathom sales come in every time they ship a game out and then that's what they use to get into the initial period of the centaur build not the actual physical deposit right but okay we don't have enough we being them don't have enough money, because they have to recapitalize, to make this shift with the deposit money they've got.
    42:11
    Do they have any left? Probably a little. Yeah, there has to be. But it's not enough to do this new shift, would be my thought given this recapitalize. And because they're going to try and make this shift, their notation is that they have to slow down production activities. So that doesn't surprise me, because if they're going to move from one build type to another, they basically have to abandon just in time to make this transition over. They can't keep buying stuff and doing it that way. But they're already so slow.
    42:43
    Yeah. What do you think happens? Shake your magic eight ball and tell me. That's what the people really want to know. They don't want to hear about Investopedia. I will say I have a bad track record with my thoughts on this type of stuff. Well, we get it. I mean, Dutch did much better than I ever expected of it.
    43:09
    Well, but, you know, Eric and Pinball has a corporate sugar daddy called Ametron. Right. Able to keep it afloat. Haggis, excuse me, Homepin, I was going to say, for example, they sell parts like they don't just make pinball right they make parts that so they they one have some vertical integration because they make a lot of their own stuff and second they have a second income stream same for multimorphic being able to sell board sets to the homebrew community and other companies and same for a chicago gaming company which makes a lot of arcade games so when people like they're barely turning out pinball it's like that's not the only thing they do though they have diversification right and haggis is just this and i think that if they can't bring more money in make the adjustments that free the money up or get one of them one of those angel investor types to come in i think they go under yeah i um i i would my view of this would be this is dire i because here's what i think as and i as i noted i really respect how much how transparent this message is i wish more companies did it like this but this comes at a price of course as well i think a lot of people who have pre-ordered centaur are going to want out of it and now depending where they did that i don't know how possible that is or is not my understanding Having recorded with Zach on the pinball show, who owns Flippin' Out Pinball, I recall him saying he was guaranteeing his deposits that people made.
    44:53
    So what happens if those individuals come a-knockin' and say, we want our however many thousand dollars it was back, and I want out of Centaur?
    45:03
    I don't know about if that's the trigger. I think the trigger would have to be their inability to deliver the games. Again, I don't know. I haven't talked to Zach about this latest news. So the company hasn't failed. So in that regard, that guarantee is probably just there in case the company cannot produce Centaurs.
    45:21
    The problem I have with the angel investor is it's not 2020 and 2021. Who in their right mind starts pinball now? I mean, you can do it. We saw barrels of fun do it. But those plans had already been in the works. Who would want to buy into partial ownership of a struggling company that I think they're done? I think maybe they get Centaur done, but who's going to want to buy? What else do you do? You announce 8-Ball Deluxe Revisited to try and shore up. I mean, that's where people are going to feel like that Zidware where you're stacking on future projects to bring in deposit money. So I don't think they can do that. They haven't even started building Centaur Revisited. So no one would trust another Revisited title that might whip up more money.
    46:19
    And Centaur Revisited wasn't as fast of a seller as Fathom Revisited. It even only sold out because distributors bought up the last games by the time of the sale. So, and I think we saw a sign of this back after last year's TPF. Do you remember they had the Fathom Revisited at TPF? And then afterwards, they ended up making a change where you could buy more classic editions and actually get Marty's software package. That was originally only to be on the limited run models. and of course some people who bought the limited models only because they wanted the new rule set were mad that understandable that they were told they had to buy this more expensive version and then this less expensive version became an option and we've seen this with other companies before but it was very much a sign in my mind at the time that they saw easy money so they decided it was worth whatever rep damage it would they would take by to do it but now the power of hindsight maybe they felt they had to take that money like they needed that cash that badly that it was like that's not even maybe it wasn't even a debate about their reputation it's like it's this reputation or survival survival wins out so um yeah this is i agree with you i think it would take an outside investor to come in and but if they need that much money i mean can't could it happen? Absolutely. But if you were the investor, what would it take for you to invest? This is interesting. We never really talked about this. What would it take for, let's say you had the capital to whatever amount they would need, and they were to talk to you and go, Tony, we need to recapitalize. We've learned a lot about things that are going to work better for the production of this. Here's what we've got in terms of the fathoms we still need to build. Here's the number of orders we've got pending for Centaur Revisited and the amounts that we're going to get when those move forward what's it going to take to get you into this puppy and then they slap the hood i would have a really hard time going in on anything in pinball with how the current situation in pinball is i i would but i will say that if i was some if i was sitting in that magical money's now no longer a real thing to me because there's so much of it right Well, but I do want you – I'm being mean because I'm putting restrictions on you. I would like you – it's up to you. But I would like you, though, to think as an investor and you'd be like, fundamentally, your goal is to make more money by doing it. Not that you love pinball and this is a charity. Right. No it would definitely be based around restructuring to get a more feasible and able to support itself build And if that's not something that is possible, then it wouldn't be, you wouldn't go forward with it. Does anything come to your mind about like changes you might request or?
    49:40
    No, I'd have to have a deeper look. I don't know enough about their – I'm making you be really speculative. Right. I just don't know enough about how they're integrated and how they work and how their overall setup and workflow and overhead is. I just don't have enough information to actually comfortably make a plan. Yeah. No, I mean it's unfair, but podcasting is unfair. So, I mean, like, for example, where I was kind of maybe fishing out here, some stuff like for me, it would be I think I would have to have controlling shares.
    50:22
    Like Damien wouldn't control the company anymore. I would like it'd be that I think it would be that much of an investment.
    50:29
    So but whether that is or isn't the case, I would probably demand that they move from Australia. production. He can still live in Australia. It can still be an Australian company on paper. I don't care about any of that. I think, as he noted in his message, that they have produced the innovation and creation of an industry that did not exist in this country, which is true because HomePen is sometimes called an Australian company, but they do their build over in Taiwan. Where would you move your builds to? America.
    51:03
    The reason is so many of his supply chain issues I think can be resolved if the build is in America. In fact, what I would probably do would be we're going to use a contract manufacturer in America. Haggis proper won't build games, period. They'll design games, and they'll work with a contract manufacturer.
    51:25
    So that's how you would build American Pinball out at the same time. Look at you. Look at the angel philanthropist, Dennis. I'm just saying this could be a two-bird one. I like how you put that together. It wouldn't have to be American Pinball, obviously. There could be other options. But they say they have the capabilities. Haggis has the licenses. I mean, these are licensed games that people do have an interest in. And the problem is, and I've said it a lot, so I'm sorry that I'm repeating it. I won't belabor it too much. It's just you're based in a country where most of your market is not. Now, if they were built in a way where they were selling games and their target was just to sell them to Australians, totally different story. But that's not what's going on here. I think most of their games go to the U.S., at least the Fathom ones. And given that, the shipping and everything else, you need to drop the barriers that you can. Not to mention, even if that wasn't true, so many of the parts that go into the games are built in the U.S. Like the part suppliers are all here. Right. It's just it's I think I think it's that would be what I would I would I would require. I'd say you can't we are not building in Australia anymore. It doesn't doesn't make financial sense. We'll saw I think we would solve supply chain issues being in the States. And that's what that alone would be reason to do it. But I also think by removing shipping cost barriers, it makes the product more attractive to Americans. so i mean but it's a gambit i don't because all this like all these sales are already confirmed it's not you know they would right in a way you want to launch a new product you'd have no one would trust you so you have to get you have to get the already the old but that's where the investment comes in they use the investment to get caught up and then use the new product to secure yourself and just foii if i had that kind of money i'd be sitting on a yacht somewhere going, what's pinball again? I don't know if I'd ever own a yacht. I think I'd get seasick.
    53:31
    Well, people know what pinball is, Tony. So what's video games? What's taters? We got a fair amount of kind of chunky news in video games this episode. We've seen multiple reports from multiple sources that the completely unannounced, completely unconfirmed, Switch 2 has had its completely unannounced, completely unconfirmed fourth quarter of 2024 launch date pushed back to quarter one of 2025. Oh, no. So, none of that comes from Nintendo. That just comes from a whole bunch of the companies that are making games for it. If you think about it, most likely the reasoning is to get more games completed so it has a larger selection of launch titles. probably hurts it not releasing in time for the holiday. Initially, but there's always the next holiday. Right, and it also lets them get through any of those first production hiccups, problems before the holiday comes around. Now, Microsoft. Microsoft had a weird... I was going to say rough, but between this episode and the last episode, then it turned out to, in my opinion, be a nothing burger. Right. I mean, I was, I guess, let me, I was like, why didn't Microsoft just get out ahead of this? Why did they make everyone wait for a press conference where basically nothing important was said? I don't know. Anyway. Right. But no one knows anything about this. This all blew up after the last episode. Right. Like, after the last episode, there was some talk coming out. Rumors. Rumors out of Microsoft talking about them going multi-platform and sending first-party games to other platforms. And it kind of rolled downhill. Snowballed. Yeah, it snowballed into this giant, they're not making consoles anymore. They're getting out of the hardware game. Xbox is done.
    55:47
    Game Pass is going to be on PlayStation. Yeah, it went crazy over the course of like a week and then immediately died when the actual – when all the actual press conferences that were planned happened. I mean some of the early snowball rumors were like the new Indiana Jones game in Starfield are going to be announced like last week on – On PlayStation. They didn't even – and then that part wasn't true. Right. Oh, yeah. Four – like four games that have been out over a year were – Is what it ended up being announced for. But yeah, it sounded real bad for Microsoft, and Microsoft didn't respond. No, they're just like, we're going to have a planned business press conference thing in 10 days or something. So they just kind of waited it out. Yeah. It was weird. I mean, I was just like – now I did hear – I read an article that they did – the rumor snowball thing got snow snowball-y. So snow snowball-y. Snowball. There was no evil Mordorian plow to save them that they did have an internal meeting with staff. So I had read a few days before that apparently Phil Spencer had a meeting with their dev teams and said, we are not abandoning hardware. We already have next gen hardware plans in place. That's movie because people were like, am I losing my job? And you're making me wait until a Tuesday to let us know that, hey, you know, we're going to just wind this down and then get out of this business because we're getting outsold three to one from the which. I mean, they are getting outsold. They have for like two generations. Actually, they got outsold even back in the 360 era, but it felt closer there in some markets because it was.
    57:25
    But yeah, no, it was this weird roller coaster ride. And then once everything settled down and came out, Phil Spencer talked about Game Pass some more. They're up to 34 million fully paid subscribers for Game Pass. It's a lot, but it's short of where they were hoping for more growth than this. So this is actually a concern of theirs. Because this has gone from – it's an increase of 9 million fully paid subscribers, almost all of which are on PC since January of 22. So in two years, they've gone up 9 million, and most of it's been PC users. It's not been console users. And those numbers don't include the numbers that would be considered the Xbox Live because they changed Xbox Live to Xbox Gold. My Xbox Gold is now Game Pass Core. Right. So those numbers don't make up the majority of that at all. It's mainly PC gamers. But like Dennis said They did confirm that there is a next generation Xbox Being worked on It's supposed to be the largest technical leap Ever seen in the hardware generation We'll see What's interesting is reports have come out That due to a variety Of Legal issues And some paperwork Signings with like Chip processors and all of that sounded like they might be six plus months behind the next generation PlayStation.
    59:05
    So it sounds like they could be delayed because Sony already has their hardware plans in place with chip manufacturing and all of that, and Microsoft is just getting there. I mean, it's tough to say what, if any, impact that will have. In theory, it would be bad. If the Xbox Jump is significantly better than the Sony Jump, you could argue it may be worth it. This happened with the 360 and the PS3, which was a year, I think, later. But the PS3 was a more powerful system, as I recall, slightly. But not a lot. Not huge. But that's what helped Microsoft at that era because they didn't have the same name recognition in the Xbox brand as Sony does. with PlayStation.
    59:56
    But yeah, obviously, they're not going to love delays. Neither Sony nor Microsoft loved all the delays that they had trying to get out their PS5s and series excesses when the pandemic just ruined all the shipping. Right.
    60:13
    They did confirm that they have a multi-year roadmap laid out that includes more console and controller options, some of which are coming this holiday season. the expectation that that is the driveless Xbox Series S. That's probably right. And there's been a leak of some new generation controllers that have, like, swappable batteries. So you can swap them. I know some people really want that. I just use rechargeables. Right. Like rechargeable AA's. So that's expected to be for the holiday this year. They did confirm like we said That they are releasing four Xbox Exclusive first party titles To the PS5 and Switch later this year While they did not Announce what the titles are The Verge Was given background information And did release those titles And that is that it's Gears of Nope sorry Hi-Fi Rush, Pentament, Sea of Thieves And Grounded and they're also reporting that Gears of War, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and the next Doom game are being considered for multi-platform release as well.
    61:29
    Yeah, Gears of War would be a pretty big one to shift over. I think so. Historically, but it's been so long since there's been a Gears game. Right. I mean, I just don't know how loyal the purchase base is to it at this point. It was all the rage. I played a lot of Gears of War, but I haven't thought about it in a long time. It's really interesting because Xbox and Microsoft has always been very strong on doing simultaneous PC and console releases. So they already have a strong PC base. Yes. So their only options to go multi-platform is bringing in competitors, really. So they did – there also was a letter submitted by the FTC to the Federal Appeals Court arguing that the Microsoft layoffs that we talked about last episode contradict what they presented in their antitrust trial that the post-merger company will be structured and operated in a way that would readily enable Microsoft to divest any or all of the Activision businesses as robust market participants in the unlikely event that such a divestiture is made. ordered because, remember, the FTC lost in court, and they are appealing it. Microsoft has responded, and their response says that the FTC is ignoring the reality that the deal has substantially changed since the FTC lost in court due to requirements from the U.K. Competition Authority. They did not end up acquiring the cloud streaming rights, and Sony and Microsoft signed a binding an agreement to keep all of Call of Duty on PlayStation on even better terms than Sony had before the buyout. So basically Microsoft is arguing that the situation has fundamentally changed. We are altering the deal. Pray we do not alter it further. So we'll see where that goes. I don't think the FTC really has much of a chance in the appeals court at this point, but we'll see. PlayStation also made a bunch of major announcements during an investor Q&A Sony president, interim Sony president Hikoro Satoki said that the PlayStation is proactively working on bringing more first party titles to PC as part of an aggressive growth plan. That is the exact opposite of what PlayStation was doing. Originally PlayStation had an operative model of they wanted a minimum of one year between release on console and release on PC to drive more people to console. And, I mean, that's not like what we think. That's literally what they said their business plan was. They've been transparent about it, I think. But since the last Sony president left, Hiroki has been the interim and has made several changes like this. case in point Helldivers 2 was a simultaneous release on PS5 and PC and that game's been pretty well received from everything I've seen I've not played it because I don't play Battletech yes we know Battletech and what is probably the most surprising to me is that PlayStation is not going to launch any major first person party games in existing franchises this year. Oh, that'll feel like a Microsoft moment. Yeah.
    65:04
    There are major third-party games coming, and that doesn't preclude them from starting new franchises, but they've not talked about them. But they said they have no major existing franchises with games planned through the end of quarter one next year. So it'll be like March of 25 before you see anything from an existing franchise.
    65:29
    But speaking of third party, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, we have that follow-up that happened after our last episode. They are releasing worldwide on the 29th of February. That game is over 145 gigabytes in size. So you better make sure you have a lot of room on your PlayStation for that game. so we'll see how that works I've heard that they are making major graphical updates to the first part of the Rebirth games to match with some of the changes that have happened because it's been what two years or more since the first half came out yeah I guess I don't know I didn't play it yeah and then The last big item is Disney has decided to get into the video game market in a large, weird way. They have acquired a $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games and is launching a multi-year partnership to create an expansive and open games and entertainment universe connected to Fortnite. Hmm. this new unreal engine powered persistent universe will inter-operate with fortnight to offer a multitude of opportunities for consumers to play watch shop and engage with content characters and stories from across disney's vast ip portfolio with explicit mention made of disney pixar marvel star wars and avatar with users able to create their own stories and experiences and express their fandom in a distinctly disney way and share content with each other in ways that they love it sounds like a big pile of corporate word soup and i have no idea what we're actually going to see out of this to me it sounds like get ready to buy new skins and they're gonna be your favorite characters of everything disney has scooped up welcome to the the one piece of all the things you said was shop. That's the important part. You'll have to buy extra. It'll probably be, oh, this is the Marvel world. Now we're going to jump to the Pixar world. Don't you want to play Fortnite as Iron Man? Of course you do.
    67:55
    Don't you want to see Ms. Marvel fight like all of the moms from Pixar? Yeah. I mean, who doesn't? Yeah, that's how it is. Don't you want to drop bombs from your balloon of Up?
    68:08
    I don't know if there are bombs in Fortnite, but Up could be in there soon. I mean, there can be about anything in Fortnite, apparently. I mean, yeah. You play as the dog, and then every time you get a kill, it goes, squirrel!
    68:25
    I'm trying to think. You know, Fortnite has had some weird tie-ins. Yeah, like Family Guy and stuff. Family Guy, and they had a character that is from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn novels was in Fortnite at one point. I'm pretty sure they had Dragon Ball characters at one point. So could we get to watch Goku fight Cyclops?
    68:52
    I mean, maybe if they do a partnership with Nintendo and a new Smash comes out. because that's kind of the place we see that stuff happen usually. That is true. That would be – it's Disney Smash. Yeah.
    69:09
    We'll see what comes out of it, but that is a definite money drop into Epic Games who just last month, as I recall, or late last year, released almost 1,000 employees and admitted that they'd never been profitable in their existence.
    69:30
    Well, the Epic Games Store was an interesting idea. Yeah, it's still giving you a free game every month, but that's all I have in the way of news, and that frees us up to have some quality, precious time. Yes, so I figured I'll go ahead and do a brief Golem discussion, because doing stuff separate from the podcast is separate, but obviously I have that roughly 18-minute review, with footage from the game and such that people can go and experience. But here is my review discussion for us on this episode of the podcast. So, Golem is not a good game.
    70:13
    It is not the worst game I've ever played. I've heard it's not the worst game to come out in 2023. I was able to finish it. I actually didn't have a whole lot of game-breaking bugs. I think I had to physically reload or reset the game two times is my estimate. Now, I had instances where I was able to – like I figured out in one part how to bypass a cutscene because I kept dying, and I figured out there was a way I could get the cutscene to not trigger in a true speedrunner fashion. I had another instance, though, where I had solved one of the puzzles, and I'm like, this looks like the answer. I looked online, looked at the video. It's like it looks the same. I had to – it was one of those rotation puzzles where you had to make an image. I had to make it wrong and then make it right again, and then it worked.
    71:07
    It didn't recognize that I did it right because I did it right without going and resetting something. I went and set it all up. You had to move a few things around, and then you went and adjusted the puzzle. I had already set the things up, and so because I didn't try and do the puzzle, I guess, and get it wrong where you couldn't because you didn't have all the objects in place. Because I did the objects first, it got confused, I guess. I don't know. I don't know why it didn't work, but I was like, I had the right answer and I was so confused and I'm making a bunch of wrong answers because the right answer didn't trigger the cut scene. That was a weird glitch that happened.
    71:44
    Okay, so this is a stealth platformer in that order, but it's not just that stuff. so the platforming is very tomb raider modern tomb raider not particularly hard most of the time when you screw up it's going to be because camera angles the stealth stuff you don't get an ak-47 so you can't play it proper stealth like hitman uh but it's generally super basic like in a lot of instances if you do get frustrated enough you can just golem sprint and as long as they don't The orcs have to grab you, and then they kill you. So as long as you can sprint away from them, you can a lot of times just run past. There will be some instances where you have to stealth because the paths are too narrow. You'd never get past them. But even that, control-wise, doesn't always work right. I was getting really confused because you can pick up rocks. Golem can carry rocks. He can carry rocks and food, five of each. He'll find worms and stuff, and those can be used to heal you because you do take fall damage. So that's usually – you usually just die. He just carries them in his hands. In his loincloths. Yes. In his yams. Yes.
    72:56
    Anyway, so you use rocks. You can throw them to distract guards, and they'll be like sound maker – like there are devices that seem – that are only there to be sound makers. I don't know why the guards are around these like sound maker devices. but i i got confused on how they work because i would throw one and like you'd have an orc and he'd like turn to the sound maker for like two seconds and then turn back and it's like um if i run he'll he'll detect me immediately so i have to sneak but i can't sneak to the next shadow or bush or whatever i'm hiding in in two seconds like not physically possible is it they weren't triggering right with the sound things they're supposed to walk over and investigate but sometimes they don't but they get alerted like they they heard the sound because like i messed one up and i died and it was my checkpoint was in that very bush i threw the rock again and he actually went over and it was like a 15 second thing i have plenty of time so this is again you don know when the gun the game is cheating you and when you just not playing it right um i don know tony if you ever played like a batman arkham game okay you know what you put on his view the his mode uh his vision he's got the batman vision so he to do the crime scene stuff i actually play most of the games with that mode on because that lets you see the enemies through the walls and all that stuff it's just it's it's it's a superpower You're like, hey, Predator vision. watching Lord of the Rings when Elijah Wood as Frodo would put the ring on and things were sort of shadowing. That's kind of like how Golem sees the world with Golem vision. They don't really call it Golem vision. This is what I call it. And there's like these orange lines kind of bouncing where Golem vision tells you where Golem's... I think they call it his intuition. Whatever. So Golem vision. So that's how the pathing tells you where to go because things are... It's not like particularly open, but the stuff is so low res texture garbage it's hard to get a good vibe about where it's just all day i was surprised i watched the video this morning that you put out and i was surprised just how terrible the textures it's it's an it's a truly ugly game ugly game the faces are ugly golem himself and i even showed the little clip of the of the scene in the settings because i turned on like dynamic golem to make him more attractive it didn't help he is he is the worst looking golem second worst there's one of a sketch of him that was like for one of the books in the old days that's truly awful it's just like it's a nightmare it's nightmare fuel um but uh but this is this is like it's hard to take him seriously like he has a real gangle creature he's just so pathetic but not like in this like pitiful way it's just he's just so pathetic so which i'll get to so the the pathing and stuff it's inconsistent so there are areas where i'd go i'd follow a little pathing i get to another spot and i click and sometimes it doesn't show me anything more often when it doesn't work it shows me the pathing i just took so i see the path coming to me and then it just stops am i supposed to be having it am i well i have but am i supposed to get a cutscene am i supposed to get a checkpoint what i don't know most of the time no it just didn't show you the next pillar to jump to or whatever and you have to figure it out but the biggest frustration with the gameplay is all they're like it's like the developers were little magpies and they just had to go and pick up every little bit of glitter they could find not like true pretty glitter because there's nothing pretty about this game and just drop it in for one and done nonsense so i tried to think of all the one and done things you do in the game you only feed i called it feed the fish in my video they're they're the pits where they're making the uruk kai you have to like dump blood and guts and feed them that you do that one time but like it required certain mechanics because you couldn't go like if you went into them they like ate you like piranhas almost it was weird because i accidentally jumped into the pool of them one time because I thought I wanted a shortcut. Honestly, it wasn't, but I thought I wanted a shortcut. That made me sound smart. I couldn't tell where the floor was and where the guts were because of the textures. They looked the same to me. And so I inadvertently jumped in. I knew when I was hitting it that I was in a, I thought I was instantly going to die like you do when you jump into lava, which I also did. So that was a one and done.
    77:54
    There was, I believe it was a one and done. I didn't put this in the video where you have to explode barrels to like for like mining purposes it was a like a one-time thing where you had to light them and get away from them like why why is this in this game there's another mining element that i did show in the video where you have to collect dog tags of all the miners who died because they like the orcs want to know that they're actually dead you have to do that twice but it's like why are we doing this and is it timed it is like you're choking to death on gas That's why they make Gollum do it. Gollum does all the crappy work.
    78:30
    That was a one and done. There was a one and done total 90s. No, actually, I play. I remember this in the 2000s that I referenced Resident Evil with the whole. Oh, no, the monster's chasing you. You need to run towards the camera and dodge all the dodge all of the stuff. Yeah. Like it reminded me of the scene with a bike in the old NES Battletoads game where you have to memorize the patterns because that's what it is. the patterns and you're going and you're trying and you you mess up and you die and you don't get a checkpoint till you get all the way through it there was an endless runner segment on some carts i i show that in the video it never comes back again it's the only time they don't even tell you initially how to get on a cart actually in my video you see me jumping on the cart i actually saw there was a ledge you're supposed to hang down and gently drop onto them because i'd actually over jump the carts and get trampled to death all the time because i didn't understand that that's what they wanted me to do. I just see this carton. I'm just like, Oh, better yeet myself. Time to yeet golem. So, um, there was a, Oh God. So there's, there's all this, there's like a one and done where you had to find some lantern lights for, cause the elves want to hang lantern. So the plot is you're taking place between when Bilbo took the ring and the start of fellowship, the game ends right when the fellowship is starting to enter Moria. That's where it ends. Okay. Because that's where, if you remember in the movie, Frodo notices that Gollum's following them. Right. And Gandalf notes it as well. So the setup is the game is ten chapters, but it's in two acts, essentially. There's the orcs, and then there's the elves. The orc part's told in flashback because the elves have captured you. You don't yet know why. And Gollum is being interrogated by Gandalf.
    80:22
    you would spend years. The game with the orcs is years. It starts saying like the next day, the next day. And then eventually it's like a few years later and stuff. You were a prisoner of the orcs for a long time. Did it feel like years while you were playing it? Yes. But I was ready to be done when I was with the elves. I was like, why is this game still going? Because I've seen all this one and done stuff, like feeding fish and stuff. And I'm like, they're really trying to pad this game out. That's why I have to have endless runners and all that. Like, they're just they're trying so hard to fill this game because they're worried about that. It's going to be too short. And then I was like, I played it for 14 hours. This game is too long. I saw another reviewer say it was like an eight to 10 hour game. So I probably just really bad at it. But in my defense, like it was very confusing. And I tried not to look things up unless I got super frustrated. Right. And so you chase a bug, a beetle, and you roll down a hill, and that's how the orcs capture you and begin your period of enslavement. And the game is very much a you do a bunch of the stupid chores. You try and escape. You think you did it. You get recaptured. Rinse and repeat until you finally do get away. And then the elves capture you, and you do the same thing, trying to escape the elves. you think you've done it you don't you're recaptured rinse and repeat that is golem and fundamentally the issue is there i see where they had all these ideas the the you know the kernel of of concept the golem he's right he's wiry but he's but he's kind of strong and he's sneaky let's you know he could we see him climb around and in mordor and stuff in the movies let's let's make a game like this because it's really like why are we playing as golem anyway like why is there a golem game did somebody want who wants to be green lit of all the ideas of stuff to like you could imagine like the fun of maybe like just being evil and being saruman and being like you know what let's breed some orcs like an orc breeder 2000 and and i'm going to make my tower extra fancy with doors i can slam and summon some storms and try and bring down the mountain like all It's like total power tripping. Or, of course, the greatest Lord of the Rings games ever, the Shadows of Mordor games. Those games were great. Which are ancient and look so much better than Golem. That's true. Where it's just sort of like you have a ring or you have certain wraith-like powers or whatever and going and enjoying that and experiencing that. But with this, it's just this idea around that maybe playing as Golem would be kind of fun. and then you realize you're canonically locked into being able to do nothing with him because as a literary character golem is pretty basic but like he's on the nose like it's a duality of personality something that has been that's a pitiful creature that's been corrupted by evil that was that he had no ability to ever have resisted so that he's nasty and dark and dank isn't his fault and that's why we can pity him but he is evil and that's why you also can't support him so you play this game and you might remember from the previews where it was like they it talked about like the golem side and the smiegel side and how you were going to have to decide how you're going to play were you going to be smiegel or you're going to be golem it doesn't matter there is more difference in fallout 3 and whether or not you you nuke megaton than there is an all of golem no yes it doesn't matter and people complain about this in the open world games all the time about how the choices are you know they're false choices don't really significantly diverge the game and there's programming reason for that for that but with this it like it doesn't matter it does not matter you only get a handful of these choice scenarios where you argue with yourself i don't remember how many maybe six it's not like that it's not even once per chapter more often will be characters will talk to you like you'll be in a in an escort portion that's not real true escort missions that's the one thing they got right um where you're where you're truly just having to navigate in that traditional sense there are some times where you have to like order companions around and stuff uh like you have a pet bird and you have to use it to fetch certain things they use that mechanic like three times and i don't know why and then you eat the bird that's a choice maybe i mean i'm just telling you i chose to eat it i didn't look to see what would happen if i chose to pet it but i didn't like it so i was just like no i played full golem like the whole way through unless i had i died a lot and i'd reload sometimes it would be like you'll just have these things where i'll be someone will say something to you like how are you doing today like an elf will say that really condescendingly the elves are all like really mean and and you can either answer a smiegel or answer those golem those are just like d-pad side presses so like with with i don't know because i almost never told smiegel because i just with golem it's just usually going he just hisses he just hisses or he doesn't he just says something really sarcastic like smiegel's always happy to help nasty elves it's just a he's just a that's what he is and so i it's that's the whole the whole game the whole game is just it's just being the smiegel creature you're everything no matter what you do it will turn out badly for whoever is with you so i was just like why don't i just be mean the whole time it It doesn't matter. Every escape failure is the same failure.
    86:17
    They're in the prison. There's this whole plot line because you're in a cell with cellmates, an orc who doesn't like you and an old man who doesn't like you because nobody likes you. You don't have any friends.
    86:33
    And there's this whole subplot about a prison break, I think. I don't know. It doesn't go anywhere. it might maybe one of if you if you've been shmeagle i if you've been good now you have to do a good play okay no i don't now all right i did do a smiegel choice on one end because the orc was meaner to me so i made a decision that i think you could consider more i don't remember it asked it as golem or shmeagle but but the orc had been mean to me so i set him up to be executed and i decided that that was a more shmeagle decision because the other person who was going to be executed spoilers by the way was this feeble the feeble man i called him the old man earlier but i think in the game they call him feeble man because that's how golem thinks of him um instead well the feeble man never forgives you for this because that would have been his glorious death and he'd have been a martyr so because i killed the more evil creature he hated me you did make the golden choice but i'm sure i didn't try it i'm sure if i killed the feeble man the orc would have still just hated me because he never liked me he's always just like if you talk to me it's just like don't talk to me or i will kill you and it's just like so i kept talking to him he never actually killed me because decisions don't really change anything in the world of golem and so it was yeah it was it was stuff like that you can like decide what uh bird you make in the it's a puzzle and they're different components and that like determines all it does is determine the color of your bird your bird is just as the smiegel choice would have been i don't know what it would it was what do you want to name your bird there was a smiegel option i don't know what he names him the golem option is birds don't get names and so you see it was the better choice i was like nasty birds don't get names it's just a bird and so i so what do you do you call him bird the whole game bird there's but then they're all like bird oh bird bird found us bird's our friend bird is not your friend why didn't bird save him from falling in mordor you you make the bird in mordor the bird is a mordorian bird no no i mean at the end of the movies because i ate him i ate the that was the bird again spoilers the bird i ate was my pet bird okay the bird i i get away it's like it's the end of the game i got away the bird lands there and it's like pet or eat and i go eat so because i felt like that's what columb would do So this bird helped you escape and you're like, lunch! More spoilers. Let's have nuggets! No, the bird betrays you because the bird is loyal to Mordor. So the bird leads the orcs to the entire... The elves get attacked by the orcs because they have followed you because the bird is a spy that you get to command. But the bird actually works for that candle man guy.
    89:46
    The birds and bees. Even though I bred the bird and raised him as my own, my own nameless child. And I made the bird. I made an elf bird. It's a white bird. But then the elves don't care. They're all like, that bird is evil. No, birds are friends. It's our friends. What's its name? Bird.
    90:07
    It's just totally unlikable. There's a scene where the elves with these lanterns. I mentioned having to have the lights for the lanterns. I found one normal light, and then I found some other device. I'm not sure what it was. I think it was the soul of an elf. I think. Because it was talking like an echo of one or something. It's just like, I can't. I'm weakening in this. And so I took him, and I stuck him in a lamp.
    90:35
    Because to advance to the next thing, to go to a ceremony, because I'm trying to escape. So I'm like, I want to go see some fireworks. Because my plan is I want to climb the great tree and then escape the elves. because I'm trying to get away. And I'm their prisoner, but they don't keep me locked up because I'm a loser. So it's just like, I can't get away. The elves are surrounded by a confusing fog that if you walk through, all it does is lead you back to the elves. So it's a protective barrier. And so, and of course, Smeagol don't believe them and his golem don't care. And so,
    91:06
    anyway, so I put the light in the lamp and the elf's like, oh, you were actually helpful to me. Thank you, Smeagol. I'm like, oh, yes. schmigel always happy to help one lamp extra special but it doesn't do anything it's not like she becomes appalled nothing happens it's like she's like one of these lamps doesn't seem to be working quite right and then it's like schmigel or golem and i'm gonna golem it goes like it is dumb everything about it is dumb all the choices are dumb all the the graphics are dumb His platforming is dumb. He is dumb. You don't like him. I don't like the best part is just how much of a loser he is. You're just going along and every even that's a rinse and repeat because occasionally there will be a companion ask person and they will say something. They'll like call you. They'll say, thanks, friend, for not letting me fall down that pit. And you're like, friend, like cable guy. Golem is cable guy in this. And he's just like, and then later on, they do something to put him in. save themselves and they're like he's not our friend they lie to us nobody's Sméagol's friend only Gollum will take care of you Sméagol but I thought the cart master was friend no all he thinks about is his fat self stupid fat self cart master we'll teach him won't we precious I guess you have an option to save him I chose no I was just like no let's feed him to Shelob feed him to Yeah, it's like my understanding, again, from what I on that one in particular, what I read is no matter what, she eats him. But it's just like, warn him or don't warn him. And I was like, don't warn him or lure him in. But I don't know. It doesn't get you out of having to run away for her for 15 minutes. She chases you. You do know. Maybe you don't because the movie doesn't convey this. She looks actually intelligent. Yeah. And in the video game, you remember they made that woman in the – Yes, they did. Because they're like, people want to understand the talking spider thing because they're dumb. These were the same people that made the Halo TV show. And so it's like, no. In this, she's just another monster that chases you because you should be able to say, I got nice cart master. He's extra juicy. Go eat him. And nope, you don't. You got to lure her and have her chase you. And then it's just the puzzles are mostly simplistic. There are a couple of ones that I did have to look up because either they weren't working right and it wasn't my fault or some aspects being poorly explained or gets confusing. Or it's just all of it's done. And you do all of it. And then you don't get away. And you're just like, I'm back trapped again. And I don't even know why the elves are keeping me because nobody wants me. But he's just long story short. He's just so thoroughly unlikable. Like, you don't like being him. No matter, maybe if I chose the Smeagol choices, I would have thought, wow, he's just really unlucky. Maybe that's how it ends up feeling. But I went ahead and leaned into Gollum part, and I still, other than just how nasty he becomes, just me. It's like how he talks to Sam in the movies, but just for everyone. That's how I played him. And yeah, he cost a few people their lives, but really, did they matter?
    94:31
    I mean, there was one part where I did something that got an orc killed instead of an elf. And I chose that because I thought the orc would kill me afterwards. The elf wouldn't, which the elf didn't. But the elf still didn't want anything to do with me after I saved them. Well, obviously not.
    94:54
    But sometimes even the golem choices are the life-saving ones. because there's another part where there's an elf and she calls you friend so smiegel falls in love with her yes smiegel falls in love with her so i tried to kill her as golem at one point and that didn't work because plot and then later we find some another elf that she thought was dead or or something like that and he's not and she's in love with him now golem likes this because Gollum's like, we need to go back to our mountain and then go find the Shire and get the Precious. And Schmeagle's like, I don't like the Precious anymore. I want to live with the elf. And he's like, the elf doesn't like you, Precious. And Schmeagle's all like, but she calls us friends, Precious. And so anyway, long story short, there is an opportunity where the Schmeagle choices would have been to kill her boyfriend elf. The golem choices are don't because then Schmeagle is forced to go to the mountain and live alone forever, which is what golem wants. And then we go find the ring.
    95:59
    So I chose the golem choices. So I saved golems. Golem saves people, not just kills, just like Schmeagle kills, not just saves. But you see now what's good or evil? It's golem or Schmeagle. It's not good or evil. He's all evil. Dank and nasty evil.
    96:16
    It's just how much do you embrace it? Yeah. so there's one time i i did deliberately after i died chose uh the smiegel option because it was a i was exploring some place and this elf was connected to me telepathically it's a whole other thing i don't want to get into it and she's like uh do you want me to explain what you're looking at and go on go on go on his choices no shut up and then she doesn't say anything after a while i was like okay i'll have her explain things because she goes like yes Yes, please. And then she's like talking so much. And then I'm just like, oh my God, Gollum's choice was better. Just shut up. I don't need to hear about every single branch and twig. No one cares. Just let me jump up to the top.
    97:03
    So anyway, that's Lord of the Rings Gollum. I can't really recommend it. Well, we definitely enjoyed listening to you talk about it. I think I actually went longer than the video did. Far more than you enjoyed playing the game. Yes.
    97:18
    Well, that's it for this episode. So if you'd like to reach out to us about your experiences with Lord of the Rings Golem, you can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com or go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. Or you could support us over on Patreon at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we'll be back in a couple of weeks. We're starting to get more in the warmed up news area. Yeah, news is starting to come out. We're only four weeks from TPF? Yeah, I was going to say, do we only have one more episode before TPF, or do we have two? I'd have to look at the schedule. I think we've got, I think, yeah, let's check. Let me check my schedule, precious.
    98:09
    One, because the other one is at TPF. Yes, okay. Yeah. Well, we'll probably do what we did. Recorded in the hotel room? Yeah. So don't expect good audio quality on that one. But we'll have one more regular episode before then. But anyway, until then, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye.